The Battered Women's Legal Assistance Project

The seven local legal aid programs that have BWLAP attorneys who advise and represent survivors are:

The Battered Women’s Legal Assistance Project (BWLAP)

provides legal services to low-income victims of domestic violence in complex family law, abuse prevention, and other kinds of cases where domestic violence is a critical issue. BWLAP represents victims who suffer from the wide range of abusive, violent, or intimidating behaviors that abusers use to achieve and maintain power and control over them, including physical, emotional and mental, economic, and sexual abuse; using the children to achieve control over the victim; exploiting the victim’s vulnerability arising from immigration status or fear of homelessness or loss of financial benefits; and controlling the victim by isolation, intimidation, coercion, or threats. BWLAP representation helps victims and their children become free of these patterns of domestic violence and to achieve economic, emotional, medical, and physical recovery.

Massachusetts is Committed

Since the Commonwealth established the Battered Women's Legal Assistance Project in 1993, legal services programs across the state have provided legal assistance to low income battered women seeking long term security for themselves and their children. Thanks to the support of the Commonwealth and the dedicated legal advocacy of project attorneys, BWLAP has helped tens of thousands of women and children to overcome the legal, social and economic barriers to escaping the cycle of violence.

Independent Lives

Abused women are most vulnerable to further harm when they try to leave their abuser. They face retribution and impoverishment. When battered women escape a batterer, the Battered Women’s Legal Assistance Project is there to help them secure custody and child support orders, wage assignment orders, housing and health coverage so that they do not feel compelled to return to their abusers for economic reasons. BWLAP ensures that domestic violence victims have the security they need to begin rebuilding their lives.

Community Collaboration

Since the Project’s creation, local BWLAP programs have made impressive strides in helping break the cycle of domestic violence through creative responses to local community needs. BWLAP advocates work jointly with their local domestic violence services providers to expand the number of battered women receiving legal assistance. They recruit private attorneys for pro bono work. They conduct community legal education workshops for providers, shelters, police, educators, health care workers, victims and others to help them know the law and support the efforts of victims of domestic violence become safe and secure. They have built a domestic violence legal information website, www.masslegalhelp.org.

Representing Battered Women

In FY06, BWLAP programs handled 2,648 cases, contributing to the safety and survival not only of the women but of their children as well. Over 8,000 battered women and their children were served by BWLAP in FY06.

Representing “Megan”

“Megan” had a 7-year-old son with a severe form of autism and an abusive husband. One day when Megan returned from work, she found that the child had serious bruises all over his face and body. Megan immediately called the Department of Social Services (DSS), which conducted an investigation and concluded the child had been beaten by his father. When Megan asked her husband what had happened, he became enraged, and grabbed her and threw her across the room. He had physically abused her many times before, but now Megan had decided she had had enough. She took her son and fled to a shelter. BWLAP represented Megan in her divorce and obtained legal and physical custody of the child as well as child support

Protecting Gains

BWLAP advocates testify before the Legislature and communicate with legislators orally and in writing to ensure that they are aware of the effects of proposed legislation on battered women. In the 2005-2006 Session, BWLAP advocates informed legislators of the danger of bills that would all but require shared custody of children; would make it harder to get a restraining order; would reduce protections for victims who must flee Massachusetts to escape a batterer; would adopt the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act which is weak on domestic violence issues. None of these proposals was adopted.

Advocating for Change

BWLAP attorneys met with the Chief Justice of the District Court Department to seek improvement in District Courts’ handling of Abuse Prevention (C. 209A) cases in the issuance of child support and custody orders.

BWLAP attorneys worked with the Chief Justice of the Probate and Family Court to draft a protocol and forms that unrepresented litigants can use to obtain an attorney fee order in a divorce case.

BWLAP attorneys have worked with the Probate and Family Court to improve the practice of Guardians ad litem in cases involving domestic violence by developing Standards and providing training.

BWLAP attorneys were active on the Governor’s Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence, advocating for supervised visitation centers, emergency stabilization assistance, immigrant battered women, domestic violence specialists in the Probate and Family Court, and other services and initiatives.

For services, contact the BWLAP program in your area:

Community Legal Services and Counseling Center
One West Street, Cambridge, MA 02139, (617) 661-1010

Greater Boston Legal Services
197 Friend Street, Boston, MA 02114, (617) 371-1234

Legal Assistance Corporation of Central Massachusetts
405 Main Street, 4th Floor, Worcester, MA 01608, (508) 752–3718

Merrimack Valley Legal Services
35 John Street, Suite 302, Lowell, MA 01852, (978) 458-1465

South Middlesex Legal Services
354 Waverly Street, Framingham, MA 01702, (508) 620-1830

South Coastal Counties Legal Services
21 South Sixth Street, New Bedford, MA 02740, (508) 979-7150
or
22 Bedford Street, 1st Floor, Fall River, MA 02720, (508) 676-6265
or
231 Main Street, Suite 201, Brockton, MA 02301, (508) 586-2110
or
460 W. Main Street, Hyannis, MA 02601, (508) 775-7020
or
18 Main St. Extension, Plymouth, MA 02360, (508) 775-7020

Western Massachusetts Legal Services
127 State Street, Springfield, MA 01103, (413) 781-7814
or
20 Hampton Avenue, Suite 100, Northampton, MA 01060, (413) 584-4034
or
152 North Street, E-155, Pittsfield, MA 01201, (413) 499-1950

Produced by Massachusetts Law Reform Institute
Created December, 2006